


Six In, Six Out

by TinCanTelephone



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Cassian Andor-centric, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Recovery, Repressed Emotions, Vignette, lotta angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/TinCanTelephone
Summary: Cassian was always very good at controlling his emotions. It's necessary for survival and for self-defense, but of course, everyone has a breaking point.





	Six In, Six Out

**Author's Note:**

> For @thefulcrumcaptain's prompt-a-thon: Five times Cassian had to keep himself from crying and one time he couldn’t choke back his tears

1-

Cassian doesn’t cry when Draven tells him his parents are dead. Mostly because this isn’t a surprise. He already knows what warships look like, and what happens when they touch down outside a city. But also he suspects that Draven isn’t the sort of man who would appreciate a crying child, and Cassian already wants to please this man, who walks with such confidence everywhere he goes, even down the halls of the small transport craft. One day, Cassian hopes to move like that, like he knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. For months, everything has been so new and confusing, and no one will tell him _anything_. It makes him feel smaller than he is, and he’s small enough to fit inside the low cupboard in the kitchen.

It contains freeze-dried food with labels in basic he can’t read, but it’s only half full and he steals away to squeeze into the corner when Draven says in poor Festian, “They’re dead, Cassian. The sooner you understand that the better.”

His eyes burn and fill with tears and he runs away to the cabinet, just in case they spill over by accident.

But he’s determined to hold it in, because he won’t always be able to run away. So he breathes slow and deep, counting to six in and counting to six out, and blinks slowly, keeping his eyes wide so they dry out. He’s successful, in the end, and proud of the way he kept control.

But he stays in the cupboard for a few hours more, and when he emerges he tries to imitate the way Draven walks, like he understands the world, like he’s not afraid.

 

2-

On his second ever solo mission, he’s really not afraid. He’s done this countless times before, in the field and in simulations, and he’s prepared for every outcome. He shouldn’t even need the blaster in his jacket or the knives tucked in his boots. He’s meeting a human named Bardan and all he needs from him is a name. The meeting is at Bardan’s house, which he shares with his wife. Cassian’s almost excited to see them. It sounds so pleasant and domestic, he almost allows himself happy memories of his parents, perfect companions, each other’s support and company through all the galaxy’s adversities.

But when Cassian arrives, it’s not like he imagined it at all. He watches Bardan command his wife to serve them, and watches her flinch whenever he raises a hand. Her fingers shake so much she spills caf all over the tray and Bardan smacks her so hard she falls to her knees.

Cassian finds her in the kitchen alone later that day, scrubbing the stain out of the wood so hard her nails are peeling. He slips her a place and a time on a scrap of flimsi and tells her she can leave with him, that he can save her, if she wants.

He waits for hours past the time, then leaves alone with a sick feeling in his stomach. He wants to weep when he sees her name in the town’s record of deaths two weeks later, but swallows the feeling in his throat and finishes his report.

It’s not his business, he thinks. He can’t save everyone.

But for months after he’s sick at the smell of caf, and can’t stop seeing the blood under the woman’s fingernails as she tries desperately to scrape it out of the wood.

 

3-

Years later, Cassian still hasn’t forgotten her, although he’s started drinking caf again. Maybe he’s running on too much of it when he makes a mistake on another mission and crashes a speeder in the pouring rain. He manages to bail before it becomes a fiery wreck, but lands badly on his ankle. The pain is bearable at first, but he’s still two klicks from his ship and can’t return to the city, where the local governor is probably none to pleased he stole her speeder. So he pushes himself up and tries to keep going. He finds a good branch to lean on and keeps limping through the woods, praying to whatever might be listening that the crack he felt was imagined, and that the limb is just sprained.

He’s determined to get back. In the sole of his shoe is a data chip with codes to open the bank accounts of three dozen imperial officers, and the Rebellion desperately needs it.

But soon the ankle’s so swollen he knows his boot will have to be cut off when he finally gets home– if he even makes it that far, and he’s rapidly losing hope. The rain is still falling, at least as heavy as it was before, and the clouds block the moonlight so the path ahead of him is almost black. He’s thrown up twice already from the pain, but he refuses to stop– he shivers as the rain coats his skin and soaks through his clothes, and it only gets worse when he’s not moving. He’s basically hopping now, dependent on his stick and putting barely any weight on his ankle. If the stick breaks he’ll have to crawl, but he’d do it. 

The stick holds, but he gives in to exhaustion and crawls anyway towards the end, and up the ramp of his ship. He’s shivering and weak and wants to scream from the pain, but he doesn’t think he cries from it. Although it’s hard to tell, through all the rainwater dripping down his face.

He gets himself home with a dose of hypospray and a bit of leather in between his teeth, and the Rebellion gets its datachip. Although he spends a week in the medbay for surgery and bacta treatments for one of the worst broken ankles Kalonia has ever seen.

 

4-

He doesn’t experience pain like that again until Scarif– lying on the grate after falling who-knows-how-many meters through the core of the data tower. This time it’s not just in his ankle, which he’s fairly certain is broken again, but all over his body, concentrated in his spine and lancing through his ribs every time he can bear to take a shuddering breath.

But he bites his tongue and moves through it, squeezing his eyes shut before inching painstakingly upright. He has to crawl again, and squint through the tears to look for the turbolift the man in white must be taking to meet Jyn at the top.

In his heart, he knows he can’t help her– he’s too weak, too injured, and half-dead already. But he also knows he can’t let her go alone to face whatever awaits her up there, not while he’s still breathing. It’s a determination and a conviction he realizes he hasn’t felt in years, and it steadies him as he rises in the turbolift. He closes his eyes, and takes deep breaths, counting like he did all those years ago in that cupboard– six in, six out, until he feels the tears recede and his mind begins to clear.

He doesn’t have to think when he reaches the top, just takes out his blaster and shoots, because everything makes sense now and when he dies it will be protecting _her_ , because she is bigger than himself, bigger than the rebellion, and if anyone at all deserves to live through this, it’s her.

 

5-

Then strangely enough, Cassian doesn’t die, just wakes in the medbay immobilized with stabilizers and just out of the heavy sedation of a bacta immersion. Jyn’s sitting next to him, and she cries when she tells him how many have died, and how they were too late to save Alderaan. But he only feels numb. Death feels too normal to him at this point, and tears are energy he cannot spare. Not if he wants to heal, so he can return to his work and avenge them.

He devotes himself to it like everything else he’s faced, following every instruction, pushing every limit, doing everything he can think of to return to the form he was in before. Jyn stays the entire time, helping him sit up, helping him walk, distracting him with stories and chatter when he’s too frustrated to move.

It feels like a miracle every time he sees her, because the Rebellion granted her freedom (far less than she deserves), and she can leave whenever she wants. He’s convinced she must be tired of him, and stays only to repay him, because he shot the man in white. (She doesn’t owe him for that, doesn’t owe him anything. He would do it again in a heartbeat.)

But she’s there (and he’s so, so glad of it) when Draven and Kalonia determine he will never be well enough to return to the field, that he’s recovered as much as he ever will, and that it’s not enough.

He clutches her hand before she can leave him alone, because everything has been turned on its side. He realizes the flaw in defining yourself through your work, because now that he’s lost that and he finds he doesn’t know who he is.

He nearly cries when the panic descends, but Jyn offers her shoulder and he leans into it. Perhaps she thought he’d cry, because she’s not usually this tactile, but once his face touches the softness of her scarf the urge begins to fade. He can hear her heartbeat under her collarbone, and her fingers brush his forehead as she reaches up to touch her crystal.

He’s heard tears release emotion, and it’s not good to hold them in, but he does, if only because he’s afraid to disturb the moment.

 

+1

But two days later, he can’t quite do it. He leaves the medbay for the first time in over a month, released back to a room that should be familiar but feels foreign all the same, like it belonged to a version of himself so distant from the current one it’s almost unrecognizable. A version of himself that didn’t limp, that didn’t need help bending down to reach things, that only had the Rebellion to think of, and not the green eyes and strong face of a woman he’d come to trust in a way he thought he never would again.

His mind is swirling around her, for lack of anything else to do. (There are no assignments, no reports, no _nothing_ while his recovery never ends.) He’s certain she’s left by now, now that he’s not in medical, and out of immediate danger. There’s nothing to hold her here, when she could be far among the stars while he’s stuck in limbo– alive, but not useful. He thinks he’ll fall into despair if he doesn’t speak to her again, and it’s a terrifying thought, that he’s become so dependent on the connection.

But then the door to his quarters slides open, and there she is– the silhouette he knows so well holding half a loaf of rehydrated bread and a thermos full of stew. She steps inside like she lives here, kicking her boots into the corner and her hair down and loose over her shoulders. It’s like a normal evening, when she brings him his food because he forgets to eat.

And for some reason this is when he can’t hold it back anymore and the tears pour out before he thinks to contain them, in streams down his face and into the collar of his shirt.

Jyn nearly drops the food in her haste to get to him, and asks frantically what’s wrong, and if he’s in pain.

“No, no,” he chokes. “I’m–” He can’t think of the word. Heartbroken, because now he has to begin his life anew? Overjoyed, because she’ll be here with him?

He tries to dry his face with the sleeve of his shirt, but there’s no point as tears continue to spill out. “I just realized– I think you’re going to stay.”

She sighs, exasperated, like it shouldn’t’ve taken him this long to reach this conclusion. “Of course I am, you nerfherder.”

He can’t help it, he reaches out and tugs until she climbs onto the bed and lies beside him, so he can wrap his arms around her and feel her heart beat against his. She slides her arms around him as well and rests her head on his shoulder, where it fits so perfectly it could have been made to be that way.

And it’s strange– it’s just the two of them and in that dark room and they might as well be alone in the galaxy, but Cassian’s never felt farther from lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> The End~
> 
> Thank you so much for reading/comments/kudos <3 I love you all so much 
> 
> (Oh yeah, and this is my 50th work??? How did that happen……?)
> 
>    
> As always, come say hi on tumblr– [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/) :)


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